Australia and New Zealand

Oceania

Australia

• World’s largest island & its smallest continent• Australia is an isolated continent – was once a

part of Asia, 25 million years ago when it broke off from the mainland and drifted south.

• Life forms and societies developed in unique ways because of the isolation.

Australia

• Landforms in Australia influence its population patterns.

• Three main landforms: plateau, lowlands/highlands, and a coastal rim.

• Western Plateau covers most of Western Australia, huge outcrops of bare rock.

• Great Dividing Range runs along the east coast, this coastal rim is home of Australia’s largest cities and most of its population (87%).

The Outback

• The “Outback” refers to any lands outside the main urban areas throughout Australia.

• Few people live in the “Outback”, rather it is home to a diverse set of animal species, such as the kangaroo, emu and dingo.

Fitzgerald River National Park

The “Outback”

can be found throughout Australia

“The Bush”

“The Bush” can also be found in various places across Australia, it’s a term that’s used to describe a wooded area, between a shrub land and a forest, generally of dry and nitrogen-poor soil, mostly grassless, thin to thick woody shrubs and bushes, under a sparse canopy of eucalyptus.

One of the Seven wonders of the World is The Great Barrier Reef. It is the world's largest coral reef!

Australia and its people

• Australia was populated by two waves of migrations.

• First 40,000 years ago from SE Asia• These Aborigines were hunters and gathers.• Aborigines feel a close bond to nature but

today use more modern ideas.

AustraliaAn outpost of British Settlement

• Second wave, Europeans, namely British, who claimed Australia in 1770.

• British first used Australia as a penal colony. More than 160,000 prisoners were sent by the British to Australia in late 1780s.

• British did this to ease overcrowding of prisons. These were people convicted of crimes such as murder, robbery, and stealing.

British Influence

• Settlers from Great Britain poured into Australia and New Zealand by early 1800s.

• Settlers brought English language, British customs, holidays, and government ideas.

• Settlers built ranches, raised merino sheep for their fine wool. Became very self-sufficient.

• Despite the distance, settlers maintained strong family and economic ties to Britian.

Australia’s flag

Gold Rush

• The gold rush in 1851 brought tens of thousands of people to Australia to the eastern colonies of Victoria and New South Wales.

Aborigines

• Colonization=disaster for Aborigines. Most forced to work on sheep ranches, many died from smallpox and measles.

• Today 200,000 Aborigines remain, 1% of population.

Commonwealth of Australia

• Commonwealth of Australia formed in 1901.• Strong ties to Britain, both Australia and New

Zealand joined allied forces in WWI & WWII.• Australia’s Capital is Canberra, it’s largest city

is Sydney (4.6 million, Melbourne 4.1 million).

• Government is a Constitutional monarchy: democratic, federal-state system.

New Zealand

• New Zealand, island country in the SW Pacific, that lies 1,200 miles SE of Australia.

• One of the large places on earth to be settled by humans.

*Has declared itself a nuclear free zone, where nuclear weapons are banned.

Oceania-Islands of the Pacific

• Made up of more than 25,000 islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean. Many lie in the Southern hemisphere below the equator.

• Divided into three region, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.

• Europeans reached islands in 1500s, by 1700s France and Britain had claimed many.

Oceania-Islands of Pacific

• During Age of Imperialism, European nations and the United States competed for colonies in Oceania.

• Islands key factor in WWII, U.S. fought Japanese at Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, Saipan, and Guam.

• Since 1945, nine island nations have won independence, others self-governed territories of New Zealand. Guam, American Samoa, U.S. territories, Hawaii became a state in 1959.

Hawaii became a State in 1959.